> Probably true, but antitrust law is based on consumer welfare.

I don’t believe this is true. The law doesn’t set that criteria, but rather it’s a standard of interpretation known as the Chicago School. This was established far after, but is not law.

There’s a lot of debate on whether or not we should continue to maintain the standard.

https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/reassessing-chicago-school...

Antitrust legislation was originally established to prevent monopoly power from giving a company influence that could challenge that of government and harm democracy.

It is an interpretation, but one explicitly endorsed by 30 years of Supreme Court precedent. Given the current composition of the court, it's unlikely that we'll ever see the consumer welfare standard overruled in our lifetime.

> Let’s say Google uses monopoly power in the ad market to squeeze advertisers. It’s hard to translate that into direct harm to consumers.

Almost as if what harms the ad industry is good for consumers ...

Also, "direct harm to consumers" is about the lowest bar you can set. It would be way more responsible to take some preventative action, before the harm to consumers occurs.

The consumers here are the advertisers.